Adventures in Underland

Update: This screencast is already out of date as I’ve taken some user suggestions and chaged around a bit of the site configuration.  There are are now 3 required fields on the registration page which will help other users to more easily recognize posters.  The Time Zone option should be defaulted to CST now but I haven’t verified that yet.

After publishing the WVLS IT Forum I received some requests asking about how to use it.

This tutorial got a little verbose and it was 12:30ish AM so I was speaking soft and quiet … just turn the volume up a bit if you need to. I’m going to work on future casts being a bit more concise and targeting one specific thing at a time. It’s hard for me to watch anything longer than 2 minutes so that’s my target time for future tutorials …. in fact, maybe I’ll create a section called Two Minute Tutorials … I’d go with Two Minute Tutes … but that sounds …. odd … and TMTs is too close to TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) which to this day gets me chanting “Go ninja go ninja go … Go ninja go ninja go! and hopping and skipping around like Vanilla Ice.”

For all you WinU users out there.  I was doing a little research on desktop security products and antivirus today and I came across an interesting statement pertaining to older version of the WinU software product.

Bardon, the makers of WinU, has a notice posted on it’s website stating that all WinU clients should be updated to their latest version before January 1, 2010.  Older versions of the software looked at January 1, 2010 as an “Excessively Future Date” and will change the date to something earlier (they didn’t say what).

Click here to read the full statement.

AS I’m learning more about the services consumed by our member libraries, I find myself toying with ideas focused on standardizing, volumizing, and centralizing management of those services.

Standardizing:  We’ve got a standard Antimalware (antivirus+antispyware) solution that’s kind of \ sort of centrally managed by WVLS in partnership with RMM Solutions.  I’m thinking of other services as well.  Sandboxing for instance:  Deepfreeze, SteadyState, etc… 

Volumizing:  This one is simple.  Pooling resources and buying in volume generally saves everyone money.  The current antivirus is a good example of that as well.  Anything that we can agree to standards on can then have a volumizing plan drawn up.  Sandboxing software, Microsoft product licensing such as Office and Windows, and even PC hardware.

Centralizing:  The write up of my job description, along with the implicit duties not specified, boil down to one thing: I’m here to help increase the value of being a participant in the WVLS IT system.  By centralizing management of some of the common services, I can reduce the amount of resources members commit in order to use them.  Other services which could be centralized are authentication management (active directory or a similar solution), disaster protected file storage and sharing, VoIP phone services; you get the picture. 

Just for funzies, I’ve been sketching out a comprehensive centralized services plan (that’s why I’m still up at 1:45AM but NOT playing EVE Online).  I’ve been researching virtualization from simple server consolidation to cloud services hosting (internal and outsourced solutions).  I’ve looked at pricing and research\reviews on many different antivirus products (including Trend Micro).  I’ve been reviewing the available sandboxing software packages.  And I’ve been reading up on cases of libraries, schools, and other public institutions moving (some in part, some in full) from Windows based workstations and\or servers to Linux based workstations and\or servers.

My personal little pipe-dream is to flesh out these sketches into to fully formed multiphase project proposal with the end result being a fully managed virtual hosting solution offering both cookie-cutter desktops (new ones being provisionable within hours or minutes) and customizable staff workstations, reducing the 5 year TCO of the end user-workstation-experience by at least half.

I’m curious to hear peoples’ thoughts and ideas on the subject.  I encourage people to register with this blog but registration is not necessary (yet) for commenting.

Computer Antivirus usage and policies can be a touchy issue. For perspective I look to its counterpart in the realm of human health and physiology: vaccination.

Many of you may be aware of the ongoing debate over pros and cons of infant and child vaccination. Some people say “Vaccination is good because of this or that”, some people say “Vaccination is bad because of that or this”, and in the background is one or more levels of government, mandating vaccinations for various reasons based on some mystical (probably not but I like that word) collection of information and statistics and history. The government agencies are looking at the communities, regions, states, countries that they are responsible for and doing their best to answer the question, “what is the best comprehensive solution that we can implement and enforce, to protect as many people as possible?” I won’t turn this into a debate forum on that subject but the correlation is referred to provide a basis for understanding my perspective on antivirus. I’m kind of like that [insert level here] government agency.

Almost every debate has at least two sides … think about that … chuckle … OK I’ll continue. And almost every side of a really timeless debate has solid examples of why that side is “right”. I’ve heard almost every concern there is about antivirus from both sides over the past 12 years, I’ve advocated on both sides of the debate depending on my role at the time, and I still don’t know what’s “right”. There is an important aspect of my new role at WVLS which I will continually be trying to direct attention to, and that is protecting our “community” as a whole; a community of WAN members who all share access to a common resource and likewise, all share a common susceptibility to PC and network traversing threats. I will be keeping that perspective in mind as long as I sit in the “hot” seat of Network Admin.

That said, a community is made up of individuals, and each individual experiences the benefits and drawbacks of membership in different ways. I am always hoping to learn about the impacts of any “community” level project that are perceived by even a single individual as negative. We’re brought up to believe that one can’t please everyone. That may be true, but I refuse to let it be simply for lack of effort. I will do my best to help mitigate the negative experiences in every project, starting with the ARRoW – Antivirus Really Required on WAN (No one said I had to be good at naming things) – initiative I will be proposing soon. I’ve gotten some good feedback and am working on understanding the causes of the reported speed issues along with some potential solutions.

Bottom line: Antivirus and Antimalware in general are important tools on today’s connected networks. The reasons they exist, people who create viruses for fun or profit, are only getting more prolific and more clever (word wants me to use ‘cleverer’ but I refuse). A requirement for antivirus to be active on all computers exposed to the WVLS WAN will be coming down the pipes, and I’d like to hear your ideas on the matter.